HC grants domicile certi to a student who stayed 5-year in Guj

Gujarat high court has ordered authorities to issue a domicile certificate to a student who has spent only the last five years in Gujarat.

The state govt has made a domicile certificate mandatory for a student seeking medical admission in the state quota, and this requires 10 years of continuous stay in Gujarat.

The case involves one Vishwa Ramoliya from Upleta of Rajkot district. A mamlatdar rejected her request for a domicile certificate because she did not live in Gujarat for 10 years.

Since the deadline for registration for medical admission was approaching, she approached HC.

The state govt opposed her plea by asserting that she was born in Karnataka and lived outside Gujarat until 2019.

She has been living in Gujarat for five years only and is therefore not eligible for a domicile certificate

The student supplied details about her family history, stating that her parents were born in Gujarat, and her maternal and paternal grandparents too were in Gujarat.

It was only in 2004 that her parents left Gujarat for Karnataka and returned in 2019.

She has studied in Gujarat from Class 8 to 12. It was only for a few years that her parents relocated to another state.

After hearing the case, Justice Sangeeta Vishen considered the previous judgments by which the high court ordered the issuance of domicile certificates, though there was no continuous residence of 10 years in Gujarat.

However, there was an intention of an indefinite stay in Gujarat.

The high court considered the family history, noting that the documents supplied revealed that the family has its roots in Gujarat and that parents and grandparents were born and live in the state.

Temporary migration for educational purposes does not negate one's domicile status in Gujarat, the court noted.

The determining factor for the court was the parents' intention to continue to live in Gujarat as was evident from the fact that the student has been studying in Gujarat for the last five years.

As the deadline for registration for medical admission is Aug 13, the HC has ordered the authorities concerned to issue her the certificate before that.